Fluid mechanics research gave job as Council-financed researcher

Luca Brandt has been awarded a position within technical mechanics by the Scientific Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences of the Swedish Research Council. Luca’s research field, fluid mechanics, includes studying and influencing the flows in water, air and other media, for example air currents around the wings of aeroplanes, whirlpools in a canal or flows in industrial processes.

Thanks to these new supercomputers it has become easier to analyse how such flows work and how they are affected by disturbances. Flows may be laminar (even), or turbulent (chaotic) and Luca Brandt has studied what happens when flows transition from being even to turbulent.

The next step is to examine how it is possible to influence and utilise flows in order to increase their efficiently. It has been shown that a smooth surface does not always provide the best flow, which was previously believed to be the case.

Activities may also concern manipulating flows by mixing different flows and different types of disturbances. Future benefits of research on flowing media may, for example, help to decrease fuel utilisation of an aeroplane or a car engine.

Luca Brandt took his doctoral degree at KTH in 2003. Since 2004 he has been working as a Junior Researcher at the Department of Mechanics at KTH.

Christer Gummeson